MEN IN BLACK
RATING: **1/2 (out of ****)
Columbia / 1:38 / 1997 / PG-13 (violence, language, crude humor) Cast: Cast: Tommy Lee Jones; Will Smith; Linda Fiorentino; Rip Torn; Vincent D'Onofrio; Siobhan Fallon; Tony Shalhoub Director: Barry Sonnenfeld Screenplay: Ed Solomon
A July 4 weekend opening date. Will Smith battling aliens. A moniker alias composed of three characters. It must be the gospel truth to say that Columbia Pictures is hoping their "Men in Black" conjures up memories of last summer's mega-hit "Independence Day." Alas, it does, but in an unexpected way -- both films bear the mark of being vastly disappointing, although "MiB" doesn't ever come close to the mind-numbing awfulness of "ID4."
So hip it practically demands that you like it, "Men in Black" fails to surprise -- probably due to its heavily-pushed ad campaign. If you've seen the trailers, you've also seen most of the movie, a sad miscalculation that makes "MiB" feel less like a film than a 98-minute commercial for itself. But it's still no bore -- occasionally, there's wicked whimsy to be found, most of it likely spun from the hand of director and black comedy maestro Barry Sonnenfeld.
Tommy Lee Jones exercises his bravura deadpan skill here as Agent K, a member of the top secret titular government sect whose job it is to monitor and regulate the on-Earth presence of intergalactic visitors. While K is showing the ropes to recently-recruited Agent J (Will Smith, displaying the same matter-of-fact cockiness that was the best thing about "ID4"), a terrorist bug crashes by a rural farmhouse, inhabits the body of nasty redneck Edgar (Vincent D'Onofrio) and sets into motion a diabolical plan that involves the theft of a golf ball-sized galaxy and the slaughter of an alien ambassador presently on the planet in human trappings.
"Men in Black" is most fun when it expands on the events unfolding between J and K. Smith's training session (where it is revealed that Al Roker, Dionne Warwick and Dennis Rodman are, uh, not of this world) is a subtle, jokey riot. The sequences where J and K talk to Edgar's understandably distraught wife (Siobhan Fallon) -- and afterwards, erase her mind of the preceding events with a neat little gadget called a neuralyzer -- and interrogate an extraterrestrial informant in a very unusual disguise bring on the few belly laughs that "MiB" offers. The rest of the movie is definitely watchable, but could have achieved much higher ground had the ensuing development not been delivered with such a strong feeling of deja vu.
The capable cast does what they can whenever Ed Solomon's screenplay -- based on a cult comic, by the way -- lags. It's great fun to see Jones interacting with other species with the same kind of laid-back serenity with which your typical person greets the mailman. Also effective is Rip Torn as the MiB overseer, but Linda Fiorentino is a tad underused as a mortician -- you can predict her character's inevitable destination as soon as she's been introduced. D'Onofrio, a little-known actor usually cast in small, independent films, gets suitably weirder as his carcass decomposes.
Had "Men in Black" kept secretive some of its strange creatures, then it'd be worth talking about. But as it stands, everything is foolishly foreshadowed, including a cadaver whose noggin pops open to reveal a mini alien and J's finale boxing match with a giant cockroach (which makes little sense). In the long run, the snappy dialogue ("The cab drivers on this planet are terrible," laments one weary space traveler) is far spiffier than any of the sights. "Men in Black" is more dissatisfying in immediate afterthought than in week-old retrospect, but relish what's good about it while you can -- as other big summer attractions pop up, you'll feel like someone flashed a neuralyzer at you. What color were they again?
© 1997 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit the Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/
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